InternationalINTERNATIONAL Journal of Graphics JOURNALand Multimedia OF (IJGM), GRAPHICS ISSN 0976 AND– 6448(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6456(Online) VolumeMULTIMEDIA 5, Issue 1, January (IJGM)-April (2014), © IAEME ISSN 0976 - 6448 (Print) ISSN 0976 -6456 (Online) IJGM Volume 5, Issue 1, January - April 2014, pp. 23-35 © IAEME: www.iaeme.com/ijgm.asp Journal Impact Factor (2014): 1.7781 (Calculated by GISI) © I A E M E www.jifactor.com CREATIVE SERVICES AND TOOLS FOR GUIDING MULTIMEDIA APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT K. Subhash Babu 1, R. Maruthi 2 1Professor and Head, MCA Dept, SSN College of Engineering Kalavakkam,Chennai- 603110, Tamilnadu, India 2Associate Professor, MCA Dept, SSN College of Engineering Kalavakkam,Chennai- 603110, Tamilnadu, India ABSTRACT The multimedia application development is making its presence felt in almost all walks of life today. The development of these systems is highly effort intensive and entails usage of lots of creative services. There is no one model or approach for designing and developing multimedia content. Implementation of a typical Multimedia application is done using specific authoring tools or programming languages. Depending on one’s creativity, one can mix and match the various tools. This paper highlights the use of the creative services and process flow in the multimedia application development .This paper also provides some insight into the tools that are used for developing multimedia applications. 1. INTRODUCTION A typical multimedia application design process comprises of many major processes as illustrated in figure -1. The most important process in the entire development cycle is the content generation. This process involves enormous creativity. This paper mainly focuses on the activities involved in the creative services of multimedia design process and is discussed in section 2 and explains a few of the useful design tools in the following sections. 23 International Journal of Graphics and Multimedia (IJGM), ISSN 0976 – 6448(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6456(Online) Volume 5, Issue 1, January-April (2014), © IAEME Figure-1 Multimedia Design process 2. CREATIVE SERVICES The two fundamental activities in the creative services in developing a multimedia content are the Preproduction process and the Motion capture process. 2.1 PRE-PRODUCTION PROCESS Pre- Production is the process of charting out an organized plan for the entire multimedia application prior to its development. This involves content development, technical execution and marketing. During pre-production process, the starting point is the content or the script which specifies the storyline of the application. The script is first broken down into individual scenes, which are then broken down into shots. For each shot location, props, cast involved, costumes required, and the camera angles are then identified. In addition if any special effects and visual effects are to be employed, decision about it is also made. The tasks involved in the pre-production process are given in figure -2. Figure-2 Pre-Production Process 24 International Journal of Graphics and Multimedia (IJGM), ISSN 0976 – 6448(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6456(Online) Volume 5, Issue 1, January-April (2014), © IAEME The major task in the pre-production process is the script analysis, that essentially means breaking down of the script into smaller units. This script breakdown is an integral part of the pre-production process for any film or a television episode or a play, or even a comic book or for just about any multimedia application development. Character design, storyboard design and modeling of the concept are major activities of Pre production process. 2.1.1 CHARACTER DESIGN It is one of the most important aspects in any multimedia application development. In order to make an impact on the viewers it is imperative to create characters having realistic human expressions. Once the character is decided the first and foremost thing is the selection of the costume. Following which a scaled drawing of the character is produced. It is then followed by creation of a model of the character. The model can be made out of clay, wire etc. This model will provide the basis for further development. Hence for any 3D modeling and animation, character design is the most crucial activity[2]. Figure-3 provides some illustrations on different characters Figure-3 Character Design 25 International Journal of Graphics and Multimedia (IJGM), ISSN 0976 – 6448(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6456(Online) Volume 5, Issue 1, January-April (2014), © IAEME 2.1.2 TOOLS FOR CHARACTER DESIGN As character design is the most important part of the multimedia application, it is important to choose an appropriate tool for this activity. A wide variety of tools are available for designing the characters for multimedia applications . Some of these tools have been discussed in the following sections. 2.1.2.1 3DS MAX 2013 Autodesk 3ds Max is a powerful 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing package. It is a favorite among character animators and game artists. This is due to its ready- to-use template-based toolset. Its other features include character rigging systems, comprehensive polygon modeling, UV editing, and texture painting as shown in figure: 4. It’s development environment supports C++ and .NET. In addition, it supports advanced hardware shader technology and dynamics capabilities, including NVIDIA PhysX integration, viewport preview and rendering of HLSL(High Level shader Language) [1]. Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2013 software focuses more on creative rather than technical challenges [4]. Figure-4 3ds Max 2013 2.1.2.2 POSER PRO 2012 Pose r is a virtual photo or film studio which enables addition of human element to any application, still or an animated image without the hassle and cost of using real models and sets. Poser comes with ready-to-pose 3D human figures including hair, clothing, props, scenery, lighting and camera effects. It is not suitable if the image has to be created from the scratch. Poser Pro 2012 delivers the most complete suite of Weight Map Creation tools. Weight Map Rigging is the standard for high-end applications. The Poser Pro Weight Map Rigging system is an open, well documented platform with support for third party weight mapped figures delivered in the easily editable Poser PZ3 file format [3]. Constraints channels and objects are a simple to use new feature in Poser 9 and Pro 2012 that can provide powerful animation effects. 26 International Journal of Graphics and Multimedia (IJGM), ISSN 0976 – 6448(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6456(Online) Volume 5, Issue 1, January-April (2014), © IAEME Figure-5 Poser Pro 2012 2.1.2.3 AUTODESK MAYA 2013 Autodesk Maya is very powerful, complete one stop professional solution for 3D modeling, animation and rendering. The primary reason for its enormous popularity is due to its open architecture and the fact that it offers a huge amount of objects and effects to work on various application projects. It provides the support of a well-documented and comprehensive Application Programming Interface (API) and few embedded scripting languages namely the Maya Embedded Language (MEL) or Python. This combination of openness and adherence to the industry standard 3D visual effects, computer graphics, and character animation tools makes it extremely useful to all professional film, television, game development and design projects. Autodesk Maya 2013 software delivers practical toolsets to help create and maintain the modern, open pipelines and powerful new toolsets for dynamic 27 International Journal of Graphics and Multimedia (IJGM), ISSN 0976 – 6448(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6456(Online) Volume 5, Issue 1, January-April (2014), © IAEME simulation, animation, and rendering giving it a entirely new levels of creativity. In addition, the Open Data initiative introduced in Maya 2013 offers tools to help facilitate parallel workflows and better complexity handling [5]. The drawbacks of this software include a very lengthy installation process, slow start up and high level of complexity for the beginners. 2.1.3 FLOW BOARD OR STORY BOARD Flow board or story board is the process of organizing graphics elements in the form of illustrations or sequence of images. It is used to confine the ideas within a domain before taking action. In Windows Movie Maker or other movie making software, the Storyboard is an editing area located at the bottom of the window. It is a panel of pictures or other movie clips, laid out in the sequence as shown in figure-5. Figure-5 Storyboard 2.1.4 TOOLS FOR STORYBOARD DESIGN The following section describes the tools that enable people to incorporate a new technology in their own work practice[6]. Some of the design tools for storyboard generation are as follows 2.1.4.1 STORYBOARD QUICK V6 2012 Storyboard Quick can be considered as a traditional storyboard tool as it does not use 3D. It has an easy to learn and simple interface. The new version Quick v6.1 & Quick Studio v6.1 adds the Layers Palette for optimized storyboarding. The layer Palette manages the elements of the frames with additional ease. The layers can be grouped, copied, deleted and changed [7]. The interface for the story board generation is shown in figure-6 28 International Journal of Graphics and Multimedia (IJGM), ISSN 0976 – 6448(Print), ISSN 0976 – 6456(Online) Volume 5, Issue 1, January-April (2014), © IAEME Figure-6 Story board 2.1.4.2 STORYBOARD ARTIST 5.1 2012 StoryBoard Artist gives the ultimate productivity experience that enables amazing creativity and movement. It facilitates effective communication and presentation of production ideas. Also this cinematic software for media professionals speeds up the preproduction, pre visualization, revisions and presentation.[8]. It can support creation of every kind of storyboard with a workflow that incorporates media from any dimension. It provides the facility to import 3D (.skp) files from a warehouse of free 3d graphics and to import script from a wide variety of screenwriting applications including Final Draft.